Where I End
by Maya Eyre
Summary: Edward shuts the phone and enters the darkest day of his life. This is New Moon from Edward's POV when he thinks he has lost Bella forever. That she has died.
1. And You Begin

I shut the phone again

I shut the phone again.

A creeping blackness grew in the edges of my eyes and I focused on that. I willed it forward, god please be oblivion, please be oblivion. At last I couldn't see, but the blackness brought no relief. In the darkness there was now only a deep throbbing wound in my chest. It pulsed and a roar sounded in my ears. I had lost all senses, all thoughts, save one thing: pain.

As the wound hollowed out my body with a knife as it spread, the roar sweetened and the blackness took heavenly form. The roar became her voice and the blackness her body.

"Don't." Her whole frame shook and her eyes became voids of madness. Her beautiful heartbeat slowed as if willing itself to cease the life-giving motion. "Don't do this."

In the decaying attic I finally gasped and the rush of air salted the wound that now encompassed every part of me. The vision would not end, the memory continued. She was there, in my eyes, and I was killing her.

There could be no redemption. As for absolution, I did not even consider the thought. My body convulsed, sickened, and strained. Killed her. Killed her. Killed her. I dug my fingers into my skull trying to tear, trying to destroy. I would have taken the life of anyone who ever threatened her, but now I was incapable of killing her murderer. Me.

I leaped and ran. The glass of the attic window shattered in the night as I attempted to change the past. I could save her! She was inches from my fingertips in that memory of the woods. Nothing mattered but her life. There was no night if she did not live in it. There was no world. There was no Edward.

I had left the village miles behind and had unknowingly entered a jungle when at last total realization hit me. Was I in pain before? Had I felt pain in my entire existence? It could not be true, because there was nothing that compared to this. I screamed and ripped my fingers hopelessly into the ground. The sound of my shrieks echoed in the thick air. It was a cacophony of a thousand tortured men, of gnashing teeth and wails from damned souls. I don't know how long I screamed and convulsed in this way until one coherent word formed.

"BELLA!"

That name on my lips broke through the directionless agony. Her face, open and loving, her arms so softly wrapped around my body in her sleep, the lilt of her voice, her kitten anger, and her heartbeat quickening at my touch. All these things hit me in perfect clarity, perfect recollection. They ripped daggers through me. As surely as if I had sunk my teeth into her lovely neck when first we met, I had murdered my love.

I stood, twitching and yelling. I begged the night to return her to me. "I'm sorry! Oh God! I'm sorry! Bella-no! NO! NO!"

What had Rosalie said? Jumped from a cliff. I needed to be with Bella, I had to understand what I had done, and more than that; I could not stop my mind from playing out the image of her death.

It had been six months. Now I began to understand the acute horror of her murder. Six months apart was destroying me. Destroying me, and yet I knew she loved me, and yet I was capable of returning to her. The burning at the stake was endurable because of these things. But for Bella…

She had lost my family and with it, her future. What friend could she now turn to for relief? There was no one she could talk to, not when she continued to bravely keep our secret. She had no idea where any of us were. She believed me indifferent. I told her…I told her…

I fell to the ground again. I told her I didn't love her, didn't want her. The wound in my chest clawed its way upward. I saw now as clearly as if this truth had been cruelly waiting to reveal itself exactly when it was too late.

I had left her desolate. I had left her unloved and lost and burning. She loved me as I loved her, and in the face of eternal separation, she had lasted only six months.

I returned to the village and I threw my cell phone in the trash. It had done nothing but vibrate for however long I was lost in insanity, but I would never answer it again. I stole the first car I saw and made my way to the airport.

In the shadows of the car the vision of Bella forsaken continued. I saw her thin and shivering on the edge of a cliff. The Forks sky was a volatile color of gray and the wind threatened to knock her over as it whipped the tendrils of her hair about her dampened and emaciated face.

Tears I knew too well, how often I had caused them, streamed down her face and her hopeless hands stretched in front of her into an abyss. In the car, mine did as well. In perfect clarity, as if she were whispering in my ear, the abandoned Bella gasped my name, "Edward," then allowed herself to collapse into gravity and eternity.

I screamed over and over. How could I have thought I had no soul? There it was, falling from that horrible cliff. There I had left it unloved and alone in that cold town. My very skin burned fire. Where once I had imagined my heart, a creation of Bella's love, I now felt only the sinking of poisoned teeth.

Her lullaby crashed discords in my brain. I had nothing left as I entered the airport and purchased the first ticket to Italy. I had no vision left of her alive. When she had fallen from the cliff in my head, she took every treasured remembrance of her. I was not even given her pained screams as some comfort. Nothing to know she HAD existed.

As if to mock the terrible aloneness I now drowned in, my subconscious finally provided a new image of Bella. It was a combination of Bella as I had seen her bleeding on the ballet floor and of Esme as I had seen her in Carlisle's head after her suicide. But now there was only a corpse. Half her face was mashed in by rocks and soaked in blood. All her limbs stuck out at unnatural angles and her one visible eye was milky in death. Pale, lifeless, and terrible. I slumped forward off of the chair I had sat in and my arms wrapped unbreakably around me.

I would never touch her again. Six months ago I had accepted that. Accepted it on the terms that she would continue existing. That she would live in the sun and love someone healthy, someone human. Never again. Never again would her sigh sweeten the air, would her laugh ring bells in the rain, would her thoughts and ideas change those around her. This was all because of me. I wished I had never been changed, never been born, wished I'd died a century ago in agony.

I could not wish I'd never met her. Even at my pyre I could not wish that. My time with her had been all the heaven I would ever need. Loved and lost, loved and lost, the old saying repeated in my head. There was no end to my selfishness even after her blush had left the world forever.


	2. Bulletproof

I was finally onboard the plane when I considered what I was doing

I was finally onboard the plane when I considered what I was doing. While every thought was still of Bella, my body acted on it's own. Instinct took over and it sought a way to end the pain. I had always known it would end in Volterra. I had writhed over the scenario many times. In sixty or seventy years, after Bella's beautiful human life came to an end, I would go as quickly as possible and beg the Volurri for death. I would force their hand. The only agony of this scenario was that I would have to live a few hours after Bella had stopped. After I left her, I never considered it would be like this.

I never thought I would be begging for PUNISHMENT and death. So what if there was a hell? It was not enough. The guilt bound my hands and squeezed my throat. The gnawed out heart in my chest dripped acid. Somewhere in my head the idea of hell blossomed a fragile hope that I could not quiet. I bared my teeth at it and tried anything to block the vision.

If there was a hell, there had to be a heaven.

Bella, Bella, Bella. This was not even hope. This was just a sickening escalation of my madness. Bella could never cease to exist. She was now somewhere I would never be. She was at peace. I believed that. Bella and I had never discussed much about religion, it was not a part of her life and it was too convoluted and warped in mine. However, I had believed and would always believe in life after death for humans. The soul was a real thing.

Bella…she believed I had a soul. She…believed…

Bliss, total and unmarred by the iron maiden that held me, lifted me for a fraction of a second. In that instant I saw heaven.

Bella was bathed in sunlight. Her full lips parted and as they once had before in our meadow, her hand reached out to invite me into the light. Those eyes! They sang love. In this heaven there was only her attractive scent that no longer tortured me, and her warmth all around.

I would fight my way out of hell to be with her if I could.

My teeth ground as the airplane filtered back into reality and the depth of my sin consumed me. I was now keeping my torture silent, but part of my brain registered the fear of the humans around me, their blood speeding through their veins and their wide eyes shifting nervously towards my face. Yes, the Volturri would have to kill me.

I deserved hell. I could guarantee it for myself. If the Volturri refused me, I would suck each innocent life in Voltera. Exposing them, exposing us all. The monster inside me roared bloody delight. I took a deep breath of the pressurized air so thick with human scent. My massacre could not go unpunished by them or by whatever creator existed.

I was evil, the devil incarnate. By nature I was meant to be a predator, by my actions I proved a villain. I had stalked the dark streets and feasted on blood before. The culminating peak of my sinning had been utterly destroying the one good thing in my life. The monster unfolded in my abandonment of morality, stretching my ready limbs, thickening my mouth with venom, and tasting the air.

Carlisle's face appeared in my head once again saving me when I most desperately needed him. I used what was left of my control to suppress the bloodlust inside of me. I would not kill my family too. I would not bring this attention to them. I would beg the Volturri for death and leave my family alive and unharmed by my actions. I exhaled and willed the plane faster.

The minutes were days. The hours were centuries. The vortex of pain inside of me only increased. Over and over in perfect clarity, my last hour with Bella ran through my head. My brain allowed me none of the beautiful memories of her, only my final crushing act.

"You…you don't want me?"

"No."

I wanted her. Oh god, I wanted her then. I wanted to close the gap between us and lift her into my arms, close to my chest. I wanted to run with her, as far away as possible and spend an eternity admiring only her lips, another on her eyes, and another on her blushing cheeks. My hand burned with the desire to touch her. The pain of transformation did not rival this. I remembered the electricity that had flown between us. So different from the call of her blood, it pulled me towards her by pure attraction, by love, by fate. The hole in my chest sparked stinging, directionless bolts. I knew now, too late, that she was meant for me, that I was MEANT for her. I had perverted that and was now justly punished.

The descent. I was not so far lost in bitter anguish not to feel the implications of that. Down went the plane; down I went to the Volturri, then down to hell or nothingness. I wished hopelessly for oblivion again. I could not hope to hold her, but I could hope not to feel anymore. Please, let me not have a soul. Please, let this be the end.

Night in Italy with a crescent moon illuminating cobblestones brought Shakespeare into some part of my mind. Romeo, desperate for death in the moonlight. I choked one bitter laugh. What was Romeo's pain? HE did not kill Juliet. He had only to deal with her passage from the earth and assurance of follow her. But I…I had slain my Bella and would never know her in the next life.

I knew from Carlisle where to go. I did not care if breaking and entering would anger the Volturri. I wanted them angry. Slipping into the underground, I was in seconds surrounded by crouching and growling vampires in the antechamber. I was led into their main room.

A dilapidated and fragile vampire rose and strode forward as his guard moved with him. Aro.

"I know this vampire," he breathed. Eyes shifted to him, but the ripping snarls didn't cease. "He is part of my old friend Carlisle's coven."

"I come on my own," I snarled, not caring for respect. "I mean you no harm, but I ask for a favor."

"Restrain him," ordered Aro and many hands ground painfully into my muscles. Someone poised his or her teeth right at my throat. I did not resist. I knew what was coming as Aro lifted a frail hand to touch my exposed arm.

And then… my life flashed in my head as it passed through his. At first I listened only for his reactions. It didn't care for most of my many years. He was fascinated by my early life as a vampire, by my family. Alice's visions were once again in my head, Esme's laugh, hunts, and fights with bears and lions. Then he reached Forks.

I fought to slow the pace at which my every thought filtered to him. Oh! The first time I saw her…the SMELL! I was so grateful, so absolutely grateful towards Aro that I would have collapsed with it if not for the restraining hands. He was gifting me every moment I ever had with her. Here at my death, I was allowed to feel her in my arms once more as clearly as I had that day in the meadow. Allowed to spend nights in her room again. To feel her soft lips one final time on mine, her hands knotting in my hair with such assurance of their place in life. I could even hear her heartbeat.

My sobs echoed around the stone room. He flew just as quickly through my goodbye and Rosalie's phone call. He at last knew my reasons for being here and he stepped backwards.


	3. Inside My Head

Author Note: Well, you can probably tell this is my first fanfic here, and I'm still getting used to the format

Author Note: Well, you can probably tell this is my first fanfic here, and I'm still getting used to the format. Anyway, please comment; they really are interesting to read. These characters are Stephanie Meyer's and so is Eclipse. Enjoy.

"Release him," Aro demanded in an awed voice. I stood straighter and composed myself. It was now the time to make my plea.

"Edward, that was one of the most fascinating minds I have ever looked into," he began. I stared at him, impassive. "Remarkable! What I wouldn't give to read minds from a distance- however, I believe you have something to ask," he stated with a hint of smugness. I watched two cloaked figures move to his sides.

I did not restrain my anger, my desperation, or my agony. With a black, heavy voice I demanded,

"Kill me."

The vampires in the room shifted slightly at this. A cloaked figure to the right of Aro leaned forward. "Explain," he commanded. His mind let me know that he meant for me to speak the words.

I had planned what I was going to say a year ago, as I drove to save Bella from James, but now alterations were necessary.

"I murdered my mate and will not exist for eternity without her. What more explanation is needed will have to come from Aro. I will wait for you to decide."

I couldn't voice anything else. If I began the story of Bella I wouldn't be able to handle the pain. I shut my eyes to the gasps and confused murmurs around me. I could still hear their minds.

"Killed his mate!"

"Insane!"

"He is in so much pain! Look at his hands."

"I lost my mate as well"

I looked up at the last comment. It came from one of the three cloaked figures. The one to the left bowed his head slightly at me.

"Please. I will find a way to die, but it is safest if you do it," I begged him.

A small girlish vampire moved forward and I recognized her from Carlisle's descriptions of Jane. "Safest? What does he mean by that? What has he brought to Volterra?" she asked venomously in a contrastingly musical voice.

"Edward is a part of the Cullen clan. The 'vegetarians'." A snigger ran through the room, "He does not wish to spend the time tracking a willing nomad and does not want to draw any attention to his 'family' as he looks for death," Aro explained as his lips curled.

I stood silently and attempted not to hear Aro's next words. I focused on discovering the names and talents of the vampires on the guard. I knew what Aro was dramatically leading up to.

"As it is, Edward has been for the most part devoted to Carlisle's philosophy. He loves humans. Loved, perhaps is more correct." His eyes turned sorrowfully towards me while his mind betrayed his scorn and mockery.

"His little mate was a human girl. He would not change her and… what was it, Edward, 'Damn her to an eternity of night'? He left her instead, and the poor thing threw herself from a cliff," Aro concluded with the hushed boom of a skilled stage actor.

There was silence in the room but thoughts screamed at me. I tried to sort them. Amazingly, some were immediately sympathetic, whether because of some amount of empathy or conviction of my madness. Others were incredulous but not unwilling. However, Aro's mind began to steel itself.

"Edward, please wait in the reception hall while we discuss," he asked politely, staring curiously at me. I moved swiftly out and sat in a chair staring at the indifferent human girl behind a desk.

Would they be merciful? The Volturi were not compassionate, but surely this act was so steeped in violence that it would not seem to be mercy. Humans are boring prey, and so many of the vampires wanted to hunt, to fight. I worried about Aro. His thoughts were of Carlisle and then of Emmett. He did not wish to sever an old friendship, and our family was too strong to risk provoking. Aro called the shots. I could only hope that the majority desire for my destruction would sway him.

Hopelessly, I tore my fingers at my skull again. If only I could kill myself. It seemed as if the tighter I squeezed my head or my chest, the better I could feel those memories of Bella in my arms.

I felt her lips upon my throat, sending thrills up my spine. I heard her sleepy hum into my chest "I love you". I saw her curled up in Charlie's armchair, absorbed in a book, her thoughts kept from me but not from her face. I remembered dancing with her at prom, her unforgettable blue dress addressing her curves and flowing gracefully on her skin. 'Were I a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek…'

I did not know how long they discussed. Vampires have eternity, not all decisions need be made quickly. I could not hear their thoughts. I worried. Alice would have seen by now. Would any of my family try to stop me? Alice would, if she used subterfuge to escape Jasper. Then the others would too. I needed to do this quickly or their lives were forfeit as well. I was prepared to attack any of the vampires in Volterra if it would end my pain and spare my family. But I had to protect them. I needed this to be…legal.

Jane stepped through the door, her thoughts preceding her. She was going through a detailed recollection of her most recent kill. She analyzed the scent of the tall human male and the rush of blood from his face as she stalked forward. It was obvious she was using this recollection to block the decision from me.

"Follow me," she smiled as her mind considered the following part of her recent attack. I saw her focus in her memories and the man crumple in pain before her, rendered completely helpless. Carlisle had not exaggerated about her abilities.

She looked back at me smiling and then imagined attacking me. I only sneered in return. She thought she was capable of torturing me further. How stupid. THIS was the pinnacle of all pain. Her errant thought gave me hope. They must be granting my request if she was so ready and excited.

The vampires had assembled as in an auditorium before me on a raised platform. "Thank you, Jane," Aro called as she joined them.

The vampire named Demitri stepped forward.

"Edward Cullen, it is the decision of the council not to grant you your request. We would like to offer you a place among the Volturi guard instead."

Aro inclined his head towards me. "We could use your talent and I assure you, the guard are kept very busy. You would have no time to think of this madness."

My response was at first nothing but vicious profanities. I stopped only when I felt one of the guard's teeth on my neck.

"I came here for DEATH. I care nothing for this council, for Volterra, for anything!" I plead frantically. I began to lose the minimal composure I'd saved for presenting a legitimate case before the Volturi.

"BELLA IS DEAD! I LEFT HER, I KILLED HER!" I was sobbing tearless torrents at this point and alternating between reaching desperately forward and crouching to prepare for attack. Around the room the vampires gaped at my devolution into a savage newborn.

"Regardless, Edward," began Aro "We will not burn you, and I'm assuming you are rejecting the offer." Aro knew my mind as well as I did, but he saw no reason in my wishes.

I clenched my teeth together and held myself still. "I am rejecting the offer, Aro."

"However, it is a standing one. Please feel free to remain in Volterra and consider our lifestyle. What is the loss of one little curiosity in comparison to what I am proposing to you? She was only a human," called Aro lifting his hands towards me.

His words parted in the air before me but did not penetrate. All that mattered was that I was turned down. I now HAD to focus on destroying myself. Whatever Aro said at this point was of no consequence.

I turned away from him without a word and ran for the city. I could feel two vampires ghost far behind me. This was good. Aro was sensible enough to be prepared for the worst. I smirked. I would give him the worst.


	4. Sheer Drop

Author Note: Hey everybody

Author Note: Hey everybody! Sorry for the delay, but my life has very much changed in the past few weeks. This chapter is a bit short, but since I'm almost certain that the next chapter will be the last for this story, I couldn't write too much of the good stuff. Stephanie Meyer owns all this. Please tell me what you think!

I wasn't angry. All I had capacity to feel was horror and guilt and grief. My skin crawled with it. All I wanted was some relief. All I wanted was her face once more before my eyes and her body pressed against my chest. I wanted to be whole again.

The quickest and surest way was massacre. There was a festival going on today in Volterra, and the streets were crowded past their limits. The air was wet with blood and I had no resistance left.

My body remembered what human blood had tasted like. It had been such a respite from the constant burning in my throat. It had relieved me, and I needed some kind of relief desperately now. I wondered how many I could kill before the guard brought me down. Ten… twenty? Then death. Then nothing.

I stopped moving in the corridor I'd been rushing through. It was risky, holding still, my body needed to be DOING something, but I had to think and plan.

This is what the monster inside me wanted, and I surely was a monster now. My sanity and aptitude for good had come from Bella. I had no conscience now, I was sure of that. You can't murder the person you love and be anything besides a sociopath.

Once I had solidified the course of action I would take, I calmly moved closer to the festivities. I felt the human's hearts beating and smelled the coursing blood. I swallowed a mouthful of venom that had pooled in my mouth. So close…so decadent… I watched a young woman walk towards a flower stand two hundred yards away. I imagined moving silently behind her and parting her hair from her neck…

Then Bella was back in my eyes, a memory from our beautiful summer together. She sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, on top of her fading quilt. She was reading a book and waiting for me to return from hunting. I slipped silently into the room and stared tenderly at her back, at its minute expansions with each breath. I saw her shoulders hunched and viewed her deep brown hair tangling down her back.

I moved forward and took in her scent then, ah…the sound of her heart. I moved, still unnoticed, to sit behind her and I wrapped my legs under hers, moving her onto my lap. All the while, my hands parted her long hair behind her, exposing her neck. I kiss each bump of her spine and buried my head between her ear and her shoulder. Exquisite. She sighed adoringly and relaxed into me, letting the book fall.

In Volterra, I cried out, and then gagged with realization. There it was. I could NOT attack these humans. Each and every one of them was part of the same species Bella was. Maybe they loved someone as she had loved me. No. No, no, no. What would she think of the monster I was giving into? The creature I was now deserved only her hate. I would leave this world not doing one more thing wrong by her.

Then, by what means? Bella, Bella, Bella. The cavity in my chest throbbed and clenched. I couldn't exist without her. I looked out at the sun hitting the stones. I had ruined so much for her. I couldn't even spend a day in the sun with her.

And then, that was it. I knew what I was going to do. I would simply step into the sun, shine for a brief moment, then let the Volturi ensnare me and eternity consume me. I would harm no one. I would just be some momentary alien creature to the humans. The loss of Bella crippled me once again then. SHE had loved me despite how I looked, so inhuman in direct sunlight.

I would wait until noon. The sun would be at its highest, the streets at their most crowded. This would also give me my last few hours with Bella. There would be no afterlife for me. All of the damned immortal existence I had left, I would spend on memories of her. My jaw unclenched at this. I had absolutely nothing left to lose and in my head, Bella smiled.

I sat, leaning against the wall and I shut my eyes. The mouth of the corridor was close enough to me for a quick end. Now, what memory of Bella to pick? There were of course, thousands. Each second with her was eternity. My many years before Bella meant very little to me. It felt like I'd only lived while she was alive. I HAD only lived while she had. Each day with her was a lifetime, and yet…any yet, we had had so very, very little time together. Six months and the purest paradise I'd ever felt and I destroyed it. Six months would barely register in the amount of time I could exist. It was less than infinitesimal but it was everything.

Now to the memory. I could feel her with me as I searched my brain. It was so hard to believe that she was dead when I felt her so much with me. Of course, the constant reminder was my unparalleled guilt that kept a constant ringing in my ears and a spear through my chest. With any kind of sympathetic grace, it would be over soon.

In my head, Bella frowned at me and stood with her hands on her hips. I couldn't help but smile. She was angry with me.

"Well, Bella? I told you I couldn't live without you," I explained to my beautiful delusion.

"Edward," she began, sending thrills through my spine. I was losing my mind and it was wonderful. "You are in no way allowed to kill yourself. Go home NOW."

My heart ached, "You're my home."

In my head she continued to scowl at me a perfect angel scowl. She could tell I wouldn't listen to her and she growled.

That made me smile. I fell in love with her anger from the beginning. There was something so self-assured and comical about it. I reached out to her.

"Love," I began, wrapping my arms around her petite frame, "I'm already dead. I didn't survive your jump either." My body shook at this.

She gazed up at me with those warm fawn colored eyes. "Stay with me, Edward. Don't leave me again." Tears collected in her eyes.

"Never again, Bella," I promised my hallucination, caressing her cheek with the back of my hand. "I'm never leaving your side."

It was a ridiculous promise. I had lost her forever. However, in this dream she was not lost to me and I could promise to keep her. She squirmed closer to me and I lifted her into my arms.

"I love you, Edward," She breathed in my ear.

"I will never stop loving you, Isabella," my voice shook with tears that could never fall.

"Don't," she commanded, touching my face, "We don't have much time left. Please, just spend it with me. Don't feel sad."

I was too willing to try to oblige the mirage. Too willing to kiss her hair and hear her heartbeat. I was enveloped in the memory of her that had come to help me cope with her death and mine. I kissed her lips, as softly as a butterfly moves its wings. She sighed into my frame. But I knew it was not perfect, it was not Bella. I would never be able to reproduce her correctly because I could never predict her. And so, in the back of my mind the clock moved determinately closer to the end of all things.


	5. True Love Waits

The bell tolled Bella.

One.

The first image, the one I would erase. Her blood filling in the cracks in the rocks her body had crushed into, trickling streams to the sea, turning the froth pink. Her glass hand facing upwards towards heaven, her fingers as blue and cold as the ocean.

Heartbreak.

Horror.

Hell.

I clawed at my own throat.

Two.

A white dress. The curl of her lips caressing an "I do". Her warm hand in mine with the exciting unfamiliarity of a gold ring between my skin and hers. I would have, I would have…

Three.

Lying in her bed and not being as careful as I should. Her hands greedily running over any of my exposed skin and I was mirroring her actions, drowning in the heat of her arms, her throat, her stomach, feeling the burning of her skin under my cold fingers. She had no idea the uncontrollable desire I had for her. Her warm body invited every part of me. Her breath hitched as I let my fingertips sink softly into her hips as I kissed her collarbone. My own skin was unrelenting under her clutches, but nonetheless I felt the pressure of her drawing me even closer towards her and I could find no will to fight, even with the monster under my skin growling with thirst, even knowing I was a thread away from giving in to everything she asked for…

Four.

The bottlecap. Her "yes".

Another toll, another image, again, again, until her voice hummed faintly in my ear, calling me into eternity.

"Edward!"

I smiled in response. Beautiful woman, all that I never deserved.

"No! Edward, look at me!"

Ah, so she knew we were going to be separated eternally. My Bella hallucination seemed to be in tune with my survival instinct. They didn't want this to be the end. However, I would not suffer one more second. I chose my last thought for this world.

I was hidden and hesitant in the shadows of the trees and Bella was in the sun of our meadow, her face glowing in the light and her eyes wide with wonder. The most fateful day of my life, besides the one where she stepped past me in the classroom. Her body shifted, and she gave me the most beautiful gift I ever received; she raised her hand to invite me to be with her. In the next step I took, I couldn't help thinking, "Forever."

I took that step in Volterra as well, seeking only doom. "I love you."

And then, she was there, in my arms and there were no words. Ecstasy, bliss, perfection, these were shallow and vague descriptions of what I felt. It was rapture, as I'd never felt before. My eyes finally truly opened, I breathed again, I felt again, and there was only Bella. In the air, on my skin, on my lips. I was with her.

All I could do was hold her, smell her. The burn in my throat felt beautiful. The wound in my chest had never existed. It was heaven…heaven. Oh, Bella…

"Amazing. Carlisle was right," I breathed. I touched her hair and felt the familiar thrill. This was too much. I couldn't handle the euphoria that grew inside of me until all I wanted to do was grab her and run, hold her until there was no possibility of ever again being separated. I was in no other words, giddy.

The years spread out before me in an impossible array of color. Bella, Bella, Bella. In my arms again. Looking down at her, she was perfect, whole, and beautiful. I felt only lightness in my limbs only the most defined euphoria. I needed only her smile and I would live forever. Her lips were moving and I could once again take in the cadences of her voice. I wasn't comprehending the words however, I was too involved in the caress of the sound.

I could touch her face, and I did. I saw the pinkness spread to her pale cheeks. I felt her hands tightly gripping my arms. I was a moment away from pressing my lips to hers and losing myself completely in exhilaration. The only thing that now held me back was the need to assess her. To make sure her jump had not damaged her in this life in any way. The only thing that was EVER more important than my needs were her health and safety. She looked…perfect. How had the step from life to death affected me? I didn't feel any hurt and besides the unparalleled happiness coursing through my body, I felt exactly the same as in life.

"I can't believe how quick it was," I voiced aloud, and then to reassure her, "I didn't feel a thing-they're very good."

I closed my eyes and took her in with all my other senses, pressing my lips to her hair. This was the heaven I hadn't dreamed for and Romeo's words came to mind with new meaning. "Death, that hath sucked the honey of thy breath, hath had no power yet upon thy beauty." Nothing was wrong with her at all. We were together again for eternity. I would never allow myself broken from her. I breathed in the smell of her hair again. But this time I couldn't ignore the fire in my throat. I opened my eyes to meet hers.

"You smell just exactly the same as always," I informed her. "So maybe this is hell. I don't care. I'll take it."

I meant it. Meant it with whatever was left of a heart inside of me. Whatever eternity presented I would be with her through it all. We'd both lived a hell on earth for a time, now there could only be heaven and the unbreakable bond of our hands, linked.

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Author note: Well, that's the ending. For my own story at least. My favorite stories are always the ones that continue on into the afterlife. I chose to end it here because I couldn't bear to end it earlier and leave Edward desolate. I should have though. I left off the books true resolution. I'm not going to write it.


End file.
